Let's look at actual signs:
The only edition ever released on an anniversary year (15) was AD&D Second Edition. The fact that it was an anniversary year was not emphasized. Post-Gary TSR was distancing itself from its OD&D roots.
The only anniversary to get a special treatment was the Silver in 1999. Special trade-dress for Silver Anniversary, 3 modules (Return to Keep on the Borderlands, Return to White Plume Mountain, and Against the Giants: the Liberation of Geoff) plus the 25th anniversary Collector's set. All for 2nd edition and all nostalgia items. They released a bunch of 2e then announced 3e at Gen Con once it was all out. The rest of the year until the release were the 'blow up your campaign' modules.
Yes, 2014 is the 40th or Ruby anniversary. Do they want to start marking Anniversaries with Edition launches every 5 years? Do we really want 6th or 7th edition for the 50th Golden anniversary?
What else do we know:
Info from panels ...
Greg Leeds WotC CEO: adventure support is aiming for non-edition centered like the Sundering series going forward (plot, scenario, fluff, non-tactical, no imbedded crunch).
Mike Mearls: focus on setting and adventures not copious rules.
Mike Mearls: Gen Con 2012. Would like to a wide release preliminary product to shake out the system after the second internal playtest so they don't have to do 5.5. Probably the real 5e Beta (the open beta was Concept testing and market research).
Chris Perkins: After December, it's all hands on deck for 5e.
Chris Perkins: Pre-3e wasn't digital --> subtext 3.x and following is digital so production should be faster.
Chris Perkins: Marketing will announce launch. Art budget is huge.
Chris Perkins: PDFs all selling FAR beyond expectations
Mike Mearls: Expected the Open playtest to last 2 years.
Mike Mearls, summer 2013: The Open playtest is ahead of where they expected, ending Open playtest early with September packet (which became late October packet as 'final')
Other info:
Last survey wrapped up 10/28/2013, still collating data.
Jon Schindehette is still working for WotC but is looking for the next big thing, still doing the D&D brand art bible and still over-seeing 'huge Next art budget'.
Probably almost ready to release post Open playtest build to Alpha testers.
DDI is currently holding steady, with the subscriber group between 73,392 (static) and 87,437 (fluctuates). I'm inclined to go with the fluctuating number.
Movie rights in lawsuits with both Sweetpea/Warner Brothers and Hasbro/Universal looking to "Marvel"ize the Brand.
So we have the D&D brand still in the running for the "$50 Mill with potential for $100 Million" status with Hasbro. The movie is the strongest evidence for this and getting the game rights back is also an indicator.
However, the movie and the game rights can be quite superfluous for the TTRPG. But they are extremely important for the brand which is where alot of the public comments from Chris, Mike and Greg Leeds point to. Stewards of the BRAND.
On the TTRPG side, everything points to getting people playing D&D, whatever that edition is. Since we're still in process of lobbying for OUR D&D to become everyone's D&D through Next, it is harder to see that. If you like 4e, play it, house-rule it, run the adventures from Next and previous with it. If you prefer 3.x, ditto. OSR or 1e/2e? Play it like you've been doing for the last 20 years+. For the casual and new market, Next will be accessible. So the TTRPG Brand is OD&D through Next, just not whatever release is currently being produced.
The modules section seems to be more for the situations where you have differing play-styles in the same group. So when you can't agree on a legacy edition to play, play Next with options.
Today we got the 2 more core books for 4e in PDF (Rules Compendium and MM3) and MM2 was last week. So the 'D&D for everyone' PDF initiative seems to be rolling along at now 8 releases per week (up from 7 last week and 4 when it started last January).
So where does that leave timing for Next?
From a financial perspective WotC has DDI still rolling although the 'Dark' period starting in January may be dark financially as well. But for now 73k to 87k users or more isn't bad (somewhere in the $5 million per year range). Quitting now wouldn't be prudent and Subbing for just Dec/Jan would make a lot of sense to get the backlog. However after everything is done in January the ongoing sub has less value.
As far as PDFs go, I'm actually spending more on PDFs this year than I did in the middle of 3.x to 4e. Anecdotal, but I think Chris's comments and the increased pace point to it being a decent chunk of change.
Looking at the context I'd say the original plan was not for a Gen Con 2014 release. If it was, they would have announced it at Gen Con 2013 and they would have ended the Open playtest much earlier. I do think they may have been in the process of deciding they could push it up around Gen Con which is why the eZines are going dark. Pushing up the release does create an 'all hands on deck' environment and modern publishing can do a fast turn-around at a cost.
The pushed up release is propably more due to Fan expectations than the original plan. Which I think may be unfortunate that they would rush the process because the fan are 'demanding' to be sold a product for the 40th. Nothing else about the state of the game implies a Gen Con or earlier release had been planned. But they may give 'us' what 'we' wanted because of some 'magic' formula involving an arbitrary 'Anniversary'.
I think the original plan was:
2 year open playtest/market research floated by PDF sales and DDI with a follow-up 6-12 closed Beta resulting in a Core Rules Beta product, followed 9-12 months later by the full Errata'd release.
Open 2012-2013
PDF 2013-2014
Sundering modules and books 2013-2014
Beta Product 2014
Final release 2015 probably Summer.
